Newcastle United were beaten 3-2 by Manchester City on Saturday night, but Stephen Warnock thinks that the Magpies were lucky to score both of their goals.
It was an agonising defeat for Newcastle, with Oscar Bobb scoring in stoppage time to hand Man City all three points.
Eddie Howe‘s side tried to defend for their lives, but in the end it was not enough. Kevin De Bruyne came off the bench and did the damage, while Newcastle fans were left to wonder what might have been had they been more adventurous in the second half.
Newcastle were in front for a long time, with Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon scoring spectacularly similar goals. For both strikes, the Magpies hit Man City on the break before curling a glorious effort into the righthand side of the goal beyond Stefan Ortega.
He was in goal due to an injury to Ederson. The Brazilian stopper was forced off in the eighth minute, having been involved in a collision with Sean Longstaff early in the game.
Trippier clipped a ball in behind the Man City defence for Isak to run on to, as he raced through on goal. He then squared it to Longstaff, which led to the ball finding the back of the net. It might have been Longstaff, or it might have been Kyle Walker.
Regardless, the goal was not given due to offside, while it resulted in Ederson picking up an injury.
Man City are rightly annoyed, as in real time it looked like it was obvious that Isak was offside. However, the linesman allowed play to carry on.
But former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher agreed with the official, and believes it was tighter than it looked.
Gallagher and Warnock disagree about Newcastle vs Man City incident
Gallagher has spoke about the incident alongside Stephen Warnock on Sky Sports News on Monday.
“If we roll those pictures back, it isn’t a massively clear offside,” he said.
“It’s still quite tight. The instruction is we would rather you let it play out and then if a goal is scored we can bring it back and give offside.
“That isn’t as clear as you think. It looks clear now, but when that ball was played it was very tight.”
Stephen Warnock responded: “I understand that’s the rule. Does Ederson save those two shots? I think he does, for the two goals for Newcastle. I think he’s a world class goalkeeper, I think he saves it. It puts Manchester City in a place that they shouldn’t be.”
The full discussion can be seen below…
Unfortunate incident leads to Ederson injury
Newcastle’s two goals were stunning, but I think I agree with Warnock. I am not so convinced that they would have gone in if Ederson was still on the pitch.
The incident was unfortunate, but Gallagher’s explanation is fair. They have to let these incidents play out.
Both sides of the coin are understandable, because imagine the outrage if there had been no offside offence and Newcastle were not given the chance to go through on goal.
While people will say that the linesmen should be able to make that decision, it sometimes feels like they can’t do right for doing wrong.
What was noticeable during the game was that the officials were much more willing to flag for offside after the Ederson incident…
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